Disney has a track record of creating numerous successful original TV movies. The initial film’s success spawns sequels, usually turning into a trilogy. I must admit, I find several of the original Disney channel movies to be upbeat and fun. “High School Musical” is the latest in original Disney channel success stories. In fact, the series was so successful that the third installment of the saga was released to movie theaters.

“High School Musical” also perpetuated its child actors into stardom, another side effect of being in a Disney production. Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens will forever being known as Troy and Gabriella. That may cause issues in the advancement of the acting career – note I did not say singing career. More on that in a bit.

Zac Efron stars as Troy, the star basketball player at a New Mexico high school (which is really located in Utah), with a father that is the head coach of the team. Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) is the shy, adorable girl with incredible smarts. Her mother is continually transferred in whatever her job may be. Her latest transfer lands her and her daughter in New Mexico, at the very same high school as Troy and his gang. However, Troy and Gabriella have already met. During winter break, the two of them met at a ski resort in Utah. The two were randomly picked to sing a karaoke duet on New Year’s Eve at a teenagers’ party. They stun every with their performance.

Come the start of the spring semester, the two reunite. Troy goes to his basketball click, while Gabriella tries to find a place to fit in, no longing to be the geeky new girl once again. Unfortunately, she demonstrates her intelligence and is thus pursued by the science/math club. However, it is the drama club that draws both Troy and Gabriella. Still, they resist the temptation so as not to be ridiculed by their respective clicks.

After they befriend the spring musical’s composer, Kelsi (Olesya Rulin), Troy and Gabriella singing one of her compositions, which just so happens to be heard by the drama club professor. The duo gets their callback.

Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel) are brothers that win the lead in every school play since kindergarten. However, with Troy and Gabriella they feel their chance is threatened. Troy and Gabriella’s clicks team up to break the duo up for reasons of preservation. Troy is beginning to contribute less to the basketball team, while Gabriella is not preparing for the aptitude contest at school. Using modern technology, Gabriella hears Troy’s “real” feelings about performing in the musical. They call off the callbacks, but still don’t revert to their former selves.

Their friends reconvene to bring the two back together. However, it is
Troy’s apologies that reunite the couple. The callbacks are back on.
Not to be outdone, Ryan and Sharpay persuade the drama club teacher to
change the callbacks to Friday, which just so happens to be the same
date and time as Troy’s championship basketball game and Gabriella’s
decathlon. Using modern technology once again, the gang is able to
temporarily sabotage their school events in order to attend the
callbacks. The entire school shows up for their auditions, and they
blow the roof off the theater.

So, here is my main issue with the film, aside for its redundancy. No
one in the film can really sing. There is so much Melodyne and
Auto-Tune processing on the vocals that it is super distracting.
Vanessa may be adorable, but let’s face it, looks only get you so far
in this world. The vocal talent is sorely lacking. Olesya Rulin is
the only real talent in the film. She is a Russian model, dancer and
musician. With this folly, the film is really only suitable for the
kids. Still, even with that, aren’t we training our kids to recognize
this as “talent?” This might explain why there is no music talent left
in today’s industry.

Disney presetns us with a 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 encode. The video quality
is adequate but nothing spectacular. It lacks that high-definition
polish. The black levels and contrast are all decent, but the film
still lacks an eye-popping image. The colors are nicely saturated.
Fleshtones are smooth, but sometimes appear to be artificial. The
image boosts nice details at points but is soft, like much
high-definition programming. The film was not intended to be cinematic
reference quality. In fact, much of the film was shot with naturally
lighting, which only perpetuates the flat image. The source is clean
and clear. The image is attractive but not stunning.

The Blu-ray comes treated with an Uncompressed 5.1 PCM audio track,
along with the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks in English, French and
Spanish. I was really disappointed with the audio. I was expecting
the surrounds to be lively. In the end, the surrounds were virtually
empty. Anything that did pop up in the surround channels was smeared.
No localization was possible. The musical numbers of the film did not
contain any more surround presence than the rest of the film. The LFE
channel was decent, but did not fit with the overall mix. The dialogue
is clear and present. Overall, the sound design is very front heavy.
The audio lacks the envelopment and localization aspects that are
present in the later “High School Musical” films.

As per usual, Disney includes a lot of kiddy bonus materials. There
five music videos: “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” “We’re All in
This Together,” “Breaking Free Remix,” “We’re All in This Together
Remix,” and “Eres Tu.” There is a Sing-Along track available for the
film. The Blu-ray also contains Dance Along features. The “Disney
Channel Dance-Alongs” featurette has members of the cast teaching the
dance moves. “The Hollywood Premiere” contains material from the
DVD-release party for the film. “A High School Reunion” contains
interviews with the cast. “Bringing It all Together: The Making of
‘High School Musical’” is a standard featurette. Lastly, there is
another dance featurette, “Learning the Moves.”

“High School Musical” was obviously a success in order to spawn two
sequels. However, in my eyes, this first film was not worthy of two
sequels. However, the two sequels are better, story-wise than the
first. The singing is bad all the way through. The video quality is
decent, functioning much like a high-definition cable presentation
without the motion/compression artifacts. The audio track is sorely
lacking and disappointing. The kids will like the film, but other than
that, it probably isn’t worth it. Stick with the sequels, which are
also on Blu-ray.

"Bringing It All Together: The Making of 'High School Musical'"; "Learning the Moves"; "A High School Reunion"; "The Hollywood Premiere"; "Disney Channel Dance-Alongs"; "Sing-Along With the Movie"; Music Video: "I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You," "We're All in This Together," "Breaking Free Remix," "We're All in This Together Remix," and "Eres Tu"